


Where You Put The Wedding

by Karios



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Guys Made Them Get Married, F/F, Fake Marriage Leads to Genuine Feelings, Flashbacks, Season/Series 04, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25640254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/pseuds/Karios
Summary: It's said that one way to tell a comedy from a tragedy is whether the story begins or ends with a wedding. When your beginnings and endings are all mixed together, it's hard to decide.Or, Eleanor and Tahani talk through the time Michael made them get married.
Relationships: Tahani Al-Jamil/Eleanor Shellstrop
Comments: 12
Kudos: 100
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	Where You Put The Wedding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anthusiasm (HalfwayDecentFanfiction)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfwayDecentFanfiction/gifts).



> Much credit to Ashling without whom this would not have been done on time.
> 
> This fic makes the assumption that Tahani, like Jason, got her memories restored in batches.

When Tahani gets her memories back, she goes off to debrief with each of her friends. She has always been a talk-through-things sort of woman, even before she had anyone to really hear her. If ever there was significant information to discuss, the thousands of her past choices that Michael infodumped on her surely qualify.

She seeks out Chidi first, knowing the time for this conversation is short. It's also easiest because deep connections between the two of them were fewest. His air of wisdom about it, no longer tempered by the anxieties of the moment, leaves her feeling peaceful enough.

Jason takes the whole conversation in stride as is his wont. He's busy and excited about some plans he's made, but he spares enough time to make her laugh. Tahani decides they're in a good place, pardon the pun, and leaves it at that.

She saves Eleanor for last, once her memories are fully restored, weeks into their experiment being underway. Tahani also waits until she can find Eleanor at home with no one else around. She thinks they could use the privacy for this.

“Tahani.” Eleanor smiles at the sight of her and it makes Tahani's stomach somersault in light of everything she's still thinking about. “What's up?”

“I think we need to talk.”

“Oh.” Eleanor shoots her a look full of sympathy and understanding. “Michael gave you the rest of your memories of the reboots back.”

“Wait, how did you know?”

“You've a bit of all-knowing air about you,” she says teasingly. “Also, you're squinting against a headache.”

“Headache is an understatement. It feels like...”

“Your brain has swelled up and any second might come leaking out your ears and eyes?” Eleanor finished for her. “I remember. It goes away.”

“That's a relief.”

“Anything in particular you wanted to talk about?” Eleanor asks, putting the conversation back on track.

“I'm mostly stuck on seven hundred ninety...” She draws the second syllable out, searching for the last number, and fails to find it.

“What happened in it?” Eleanor prods. “The numbers are the first thing to go. Chidi tried to explain it, but basically because we did so many of the same things over and over it's easier to remember all of the first things we said to each other as though they came first, rather than each reboot individually. He has a fancy term for it, but I threw that out too.”

“That's not important right now, I suppose,” Tahani says, though she makes a mental note to ask Chidi about it later, it sounds potentially interesting. “Anyway, it was the time Michael had us get married.”

“Right, but then the upteenth sinkhole swallowed the aisle, during the ceremony.”

“He did go to that well a number of times, didn't he?” Tahani laughs lightly. “Anyway, that was when you figured out it wasn't The Good Place—”

“That wasn't exactly how,” Eleanor corrects gently. “Not that time anyway. It was watching you scream and run away.”

“You called it torture,” Tahani remembers. The memories were still fresh enough that she can still put herself back there in that Tahani’s gorgeous pair of heels from her dear friend Jimmy, as it were. 

_Tahani flung herself down on the couch Janet had placed in the staging room of the quaint little building set aside for the weddings. Tears flowed freely down her face soaking into the plush fabric. The sinkhole seemed like the final straw. Everyone knew she and Eleanor were frauds, that they were not true soulmates, nor destined for The Good Place. This wedding clearly wasn’t meant to be, even though she started to dare to hope that there really was something between them beyond a mutual ‘Get Out of Eternal Suffering Free’ card_.

 _But then Eleanor was there and rubbed soothing circles in the hollow between her shoulder blades. And gave one of those signature Eleanor speeches_.

“Do you remember what else you said?” Tahani asks. 

Eleanor’s head tilts considering. “Something like: we must be in The Bad Place because no paradise would force you into an eternal connection that fast, or bar you from planning your own wedding.”

“It was the perfect torture for me though. I hated being stuck with whatever the neighborhood decided. The most important party of my life, and I was in charge of nothing! Not the venue, the decor, the music, the food.”

 _The venue was tiny and far less grand than Tahani had pictured when she imagined her wedding as a little girl. Thanks to a lack of need for religious trappings for her and Eleanor, it was plainer too_.

It's Eleanor's turn to laugh, and the sound draws Tahani back to the present again. “I thought you were going to abandon ship the second you saw the balloons and paper streamers.”

“They weren't even mylar! It looked like a child's birthday party.”

“But the polka music added much needed elegance,” Eleanor quoted.

“I did say that, didn't I? I was trying to be polite. I would have preferred something timeless. I had really expected them to fetch one of the great composers to play live for us. Not Jason in a DJ booth.”

“They were busy being tortured,” Eleanor reminds her needlessly.

“Well, I know that now,” Tahani replies, a sour expression on her face.

Eleanor doesn't continue the argument. “This isn't what you came here to talk about.” 

Tahani shakes her head. “You really sound like a wise old architect now. It's a bit strange.”

Eleanor shrugged again. “I think it comes with the territory.” She patted next to her on the couch. “Come sit.”

Tahani does, crossing the room to plunk down next to her. She's suddenly nervous. She's still half-thinking about that other night on a couch, where they’d resolved to get married anyway.

“ _If we are in The Bad Place, then I think we need an ally more than ever. We’re still dressed for a wedding. A little rumpled, but,” Tahani stood up, straightening her skirts and brushing at her bodice. “What say you, Eleanor Shellstrop, marry me anyway?_ ”

 _“Yes,” Eleanor had said, and then she’d kissed her, and in spite of everything, it all seemed okay_.

The thought makes Tahani's chest ache. How is it possible to miss someone when they're right there?

“I don't want to rush you,” Eleanor says, “but eventually someone in the neighborhood is going to need something.”

Tahani hates that. Even here, even now there's an ever-ticking clock hanging over their heads. In this moment though, it gives her the push to ask: “Why did you marry me?”

“It was unfair, wasn't it? We didn't even get to enjoy it.”

“That's not what I meant.” Tahani frowns as she tries again. “I understood why you suggested we get married in the first place because of Michael’s rule about only couples remaining in The Good Place. It was pure convenience. However, once we knew the truth, that incentive was gone.”

Eleanor nods. “It was, but I,” Eleanor's voice hitches, “I love you, and you really were smoking in that dress. Would've married you anywhere.”

Tahani chuckles at the joke and then Eleanor laughs at her laughing and then they're both caught somewhere between laughing and teary. Because they can't be together while Eleanor's still the architect, even if they wanted to. She's not even sure it's fair to ask Eleanor now in the midst of everything. “I'm sorry, the timing is all wrong, we have a job to do, and I sho—”

Eleanor cuts her off with a kiss. “If we waited for things to be perfect, none of us would have ever found each other. You were right then, and you're right now. We got this far because of each other.” 

It sounds like a Chidi thing to say, which makes Tahani's heart twist differently. She misses him too. They share a moment of space for that. A single tear escapes Tahani's lashes. Eleanor catches it on a fingertip, smoothes her thumb over Tahani's cheek.

“Look, we made through more than 800 versions of personally-designed Bad Places, we can get through this obstacle. And then...”

“And then there's bound to be something else,” Tahani adds, morose and bitter. “What if I'm not meant to win?”

“Maybe there will, and maybe you're not, but if that's true then I'm sure not meant to, and I'm not ready to give up yet.” Eleanor throws a defiant stare at her.

This blazing wave of hope softens the frustration burning within Tahani. She plucks free a tissue and wipes at her face.

“You know it's not just you, right?”

Tahani turns to face Eleanor once more. “What do you mean?”

“That same night, back on that couch after I told you that we were in the Bad Place, you didn't say anything right away.”

“It was a shock. It was always a shock. Each time. I spent my life thinking I'd done everything right. I didn't expect to end up in The Bad Place.”

She nods. “Anyway, when you didn't say anything, I just figured that was because you were about to disappear or burst into flame or, I don't know, collapse into a pile of beetles.”

“What?”

“It seems so obvious that you were a demon because...” Eleanor trails off there.

For a split second, Tahani's confused. How could Eleanor possibly think that she was a demon? But then she gets it.

That same insecurity hangs over both of them: no one could want them. Not without an ulterior motive.

She pulls Eleanor into a tight hug. Part of Tahani wants to stay right there holding onto each other forever, fate of the afterlife be damned.

But the front door bangs open and Eleanor jumps away. Jason bursts in, panting. “One of you has to come quick; there's been a Janet Baby malfunction.”

Eleanor scrambles up off the couch, and then looks back at Tahani, hesitant.

“Go. I'll be fine,” she promises, waving them on. They have time, she reminds herself. They will talk about this again.

Eleanor is already snapping out of it. “Good, because now that you remember, you owe me a honeymoon. A very sexy honeymoon!” With that, Eleanor lets Jason tow her away.

* * *

Tahani goes to find Michael in the office. She does feel better but still has a few lingering questions. “Michael, do you have a minute?”

“Why?” He peers closely at her. “Is your hair falling out?”

Tahani clutches at her scalp, aghast. “No! Is that common?”

“I'm going to go with no,” he says, which is most decidedly not reassuring.

Tahani soldiers on regardless. “Do you remember the reboot with the weddings?”

“Uh huh.”

“You had to have known that Eleanor and I had figured it out by the time we got married.”

“Uh huh,” Michael repeats. “Eleanor screaming 'I'm leaping over the pits of hell' as you longjumped your way to the altar cinched that for me.”

“Yet, you let us go through with it anyway. Why?”

Michael heaved a sigh. “I don't know, Tahani. Originally, my hope was that pushing you each to 'find' soulmates would make you feel closer to the demon you'd 'chosen' and less likely to seek out each other. Once that backfired, I just held out hope that you and Eleanor might still make each other miserable.”

Tahani just stands there, arms folded, and stares, waiting. There is more he isn't saying.

“Or, just maybe, I was already feeling guilty. We'd already been through this all so many times. It was hard to see the harm in letting the two of you be happy for a little while. Does that help?”

Tahani relaxes. “Yes, thank you, Michael.” Tahani isn't sure why she feels glad knowing that Michael thinks she and Eleanor could be happy together, but his approval loosens the knot in her chest.

“I probably should go help Eleanor and Jason?”

Tahani agrees. “I'll come with you.”

* * *

When Tahani and Michael arrive on the scene, the problem is already sorted. Eleanor slips a hand into Tahani's and tugs her away. “You want to come over after dinner tonight?”

Tahani's brow furls. “Always. Did you have something in mind?”

Eleanor bends close to whisper in her ear. “I thought maybe we've had enough talking for one day and we could reenact the best bits of reboot 218.

Tahani recognizes it, of course. The first time Michael paired them off as soulmates. Her face heats just thinking about the possibilities. “I'd love to,” she whispers back.

She turns and leaves with some unimaginative excuse about getting something to eat, so she doesn't linger too long and blow their cover. It's only once she's in the queue that she realizes:

if Eleanor hasn't memorized any of the reboots individually, then why does she know that number?

* * *

Later, Tahani combs her fingers through Eleanor's hair. They table discussing the past in favor of focusing on how to tackle the ongoing Simone problem, but no new answers present themselves. Tahani knows she should be asking about styling options but instead of what slips out is: “How did you remember 218?”

With her back to Tahani it's hard to know, but Eleanor seems to blush. “I'm trying to hang on to the important ones,” she says. Apparently, Eleanor is going all in on vulnerability tonight.

Tahani freezes. Already her thoughts are at war, criticizing and defending herself in equal measure. “Thank you,” she says inadequately. Her fingers seem to remember she was in the middle of something and without really thinking, she braids a section of Eleanor's hair. Tahani unwinds it before she can think again.

She draws Eleanor toward her. Eleanor tips her head back, looking at Tahani upside-down. “You're thinking awfully hard there,” Eleanor comments.

Tahani is thinking. About the past and the future and the enormity of the task they're facing. Mostly about herself and that, of course, is how Tahani ended up here. She looks down at Eleanor, who looks even more exhausted than Tahani feels. Perhaps she doesn't need to resolve everything she's feeling in one night. Perhaps they both need something else.

Tahani smirks, borrowing a page from Eleanor's playbook, and deflects. “I was just thinking about the greatest hits you swore to show me.”

That gets Eleanor to smile. “Any ideas on where we start?”

Tahani's answering smile is sultry. “More than a few.”


End file.
